A CTbites Reading List for Food Lovers
Whether you're spending the dwindling days of summer off the grid with nothing but time, or eagerly awaiting the moment when back-to-school means reclaiming a few hours of your day, this list was made for you.
These aren’t cookbooks. That’s another list for another time (and perhaps a different skill set). This list spans our favorite chef memoirs, food essays, travel stories, and food industry gossip with a few recipes thrown in for good measure.
While not required reading, these books promise to inspire, touch and provoke some of our own enjoyable memories and meals.
Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
by Anthony Bourdain
In this case the title says it all. Bourdain’s style alternately embraces food porn, plentiful f-bombs and a bit of shock and awe as he candidly explores the food industry and the stars who inhabit it. This take no prisoners approach is why we obsessively follow Bourdain and why we are happy to tag along with his explosive diatribes and delicious journeys.
Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food
by Paul Greenberg
This book lays out the intricate relationship with the global fisheries market through an exploration of four fish: salmon, sea-bass, cod and tuna. These examples illustrate both success (sea bass) and utter failure (salmon), bringing the reader on a journey of fish enlightenment. In Sam Sifton’s recent New York Times review he describes Four Fish as a “necessary book for anyone truly interested in what we take from the sea to eat, and how, and why.” A must-read for any seafood lover with a conscience.
The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Toward Perfection
by Michael Ruhlman
Exacting and precise to Anthony Bourdain’s chaos and tribulations, Michael Ruhlman’s style as both a chef and writer is the polar opposite of a Bourdain. In The Soul of a Chef, Ruhlman explores what makes those perfection-seeking chefs tick. The book is segmented in three parts; an almost painful look into the Certified Master Chef exam at the Culinary Institute of America, a rising culinary star in Cleveland and a portrait of Chef Thomas Keller with whom Ruhlman worked with as co-author of The French Laundry Cookbook. Enough said. That chapter alone is worth the price of admission for this book.
My Life in France
by Julia Child
My Life in France is a touching and personal tale of an adventurous newlywed with a unrelenting drive to learn French cooking (or cookery as she calls it) while stationed in one of the most idyllic outposts, Paris. That this newlywed is Julia Child, one of America’s most beloved food personalities and author of the French cooking masterpiece, Mastering the Art of French Cooking means you can’t help but to hear her falsetto-like voice narrating as you read this wonderful gem of a book.
Food Rules: An Eater's Manual
by Michael Pollan
What should I eat? Eat food. What kind of food should I eat? Mostly plants. How should I eat it? Not too much. Those questions and statements form the backbone of Pollan’s most recent book, a compendium of food rules that encourage and remind us to get back to the basics with our relationship to food.
Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life
by Kim Severson
Marion Cunningham, Edna Lewis, Alice Waters, Rachael Ray, Ruth Reichl, Marcella Hazan, Leah Chase and her mother, Anne Marie Severson. Stories of these women guide Kim Severson's witty memoir. A food writer for the New York Times, Severson's journey of self-exploration is divined with the kitchen as her classroom.
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise
by Ruth Reichl
"Every restaurant is a theater." So declares Ruth Reichl who needs no introduction. In this 2006 memoir, Reichl recounts a decade of serving as the New York Times's restaurant critic in the 1990s. Her flowery prose is inimitable, and her meals, memorable.
Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany
by Bill Buford
This premise of this book is in every gourmand’s daydream rotation. This would be the one where you cash in your chips, ditch your day job and apprentice with/at _______ (fill in the blank with your favorite chef, farming activity or artisinal craft). Yup, you are not alone. Bill Buford actually indulges this intense curiosity in what amounts to a four year exploration of chef Mario Batali. Working in his restaurants, alongside his teachers and diving into tomes of Italian cooking and history fill out the pages of this book. Warning, this book will make you mentally write yet another letter of resignation.
Eat, Memory: Great Writers at the Table: A Collection of Essays from the New York Times
by the New York Times | edited by Amanda Hesser
Food provokes memories, as Proust famously channeled with the help of a french cookie, the madeleine. Editor and food writer Amanda Hesser selects 26 essays that originally appeared in the New York Times Magazine in this elegant collection of food-centric stories, Eat, Memory: Great Writers at the Table. Some of these stories are savory meals such as "Home Turf" by Kirin Desai, while others, such as the poet Billy Collins’ contribution, are a short and touching amuse bouche.
Italy for the Gourmet Traveler
by Fred Plotkin
If you’ve traveled to Italy or plan on booking a trip, this may be as valuable as your Michelin and Frommer’s Guide combined. Plotkin details the countries regions, culinary specialties, restaurants and cultural climates. A true resource for any gourmand’s pilgramage to the Italian holy land of food.
The Art of Eating
by M.F. K. FIsher
A collection of five works that totals almost 800 pages, this doorstop is the foodie equivalent of Ulysses. Fisher’s writing is elegant, witty and downright beautiful. If I could urge you to devour any of these books, it would be this one.
Cookbooks
Reader Comments (13)
Great list! I heartily recommend the addition of Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking and More Home Cooking. They're not new, but they're fantastic!
thanks for the links
Thanks for the new additions to my reading list! Also worth consideration: Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink edited by David Remnick. This anthology contains articles and cartoons once featured in the magazine.
I aso just finished reading "A Homemade Life, stories and recipes from my kitchen table" by Molly Wizenberg, the creator of the blog ORANGETTE. It tells of her sweet and sometimes hilariously funny journey into food and recipe writing. Her voice makes for a great read and the recipes sprinkled throughout are simple and unique.
Liz- I love Secret Ingredients! That one is in heavy rotation. The martini story in there inspired my recent martini diatribe.
Steph-Would love to borrow that book. I sense a CTbites book swap in the future.
Jacquie-I'm not familiar with Colwin but will check her out. Thanks for the rec.
Just in time, Amy! Can't wait to sink my teeth into some of these books before the summer's over; thanks!
"The Man Who Ate Everything" by Jeffrey Steingarten is a personal favorite. Not only for the essays but I've used several of the recipes in it.
I would add and agree with others with the following choices
Ruth Reichl – Garlic and Sapphires plus Tender at the Bone
Anthony Bourdin – Kitchen Confidential, The Nasty Bits plus A Cook's Tour
David Sax – Save the Deli (at least the first half and then it gets a bit repetitive)
Jeffrey Steingarten – The Man Who Ate Everything, although watching him as a judge on TV makes me wish I did not give him any money.
All the titles you've all listed are just great, and here's a relatively new one to add to the list: Born Round by Frank Bruni, the former NYTimes restaurant critic. He's a wonderful writer and a great storyteller. Amy, it's no wonder you are not familiar with Laurie Colwin -- she was another wonderful writer, but she died too young, of cancer -- more than 20 years ago. Do check her out!
Great addition. I heard Frank Bruni speak at The Westport Public Library a few weeks ago. He was wonderfully articulate. Apparently the only dish that make him take pause before eating was live shrimp (still moving). I really enjoyed the passages related to his mother in the book...very funny stuff.
Karen + Steph:
Definitely need to add Frank Bruni. I've only read excerpts from the New Yorker and then it fell off my radar.
Chris + J Food:
If Steingarten in print is better than Steingarten on TV, I will give it a try. All great suggestions!
Folks have hit some high points...
Kitchen Confidential;
Born Round;
David Chang's Momofuku is as good a reading book as it is a cookbook;
John Thorne's writing is as good food writing as can be found today. His books are all stellar, and throwbacks to a time of great thoughtful food writing....
Simple Cooking; Outlaw Cook; Serious Pig; Pot on the Fire; Mouth Wide Open.
Another fun read is Under the Table by Katherine Darling -- it's her experience as a student at the French Culinary Institute. Each chapter ends with a recipe and the Decadent Potato Puree is delicious!